How do creationists explain away prehistoric humans?

[BigT]

@Czarcasm

Maybe, just maybe this “reconciliation” is so clear to you because it removes a stumbling block from what you want the Bible to be? If it was that clear, there wouldn’t be any controversy.

It’s obviously a possibility that it seems more obvious to him because he’s learned about it before.

But that has no bearing on the merit of the argument. Arguments remain true or false regardless of the beliefs of the person making them.

The problem is, he has brought forth an explanation, and no one has provided a counter, but instead decided to just be rudely dismissive. When you’re being dismissive, it suggests you don’t have a counterargument.

Whether simple or not, the interpretation of the tense of that particular verb is important. If the best sources say it was “had created” and not “created,” talking about something that had already happened at that point in the story, then that’s a pretty definitive explanation.

What I know from experience is that I’ve read those two chapters a lot, even sometimes deliberately looking for possible contradictions, and I never came up with the interpretation Chronos gave.

[BigT]

@eschereal

Genesis One:

Genesis Two:

Someone needs to get their story straight. This would never fly in court.

I can say at least one good thing for your argument: you could have used a different translation, one that makes your case more air tight.

But, just given the translation you have given, the answer is simple. “shrub of the field” and “herb of the field” are different from all shrubs and all herbs.

The real question is if this translation is supported by the source or an attempt to smooth over discrepancies in the original.

[eschereal]

@BigT

I can say at least one good thing for your argument: you could have used a different translation, one that makes your case more air tight.

But, just given the translation you have given, the answer is simple. “shrub of the field” and “herb of the field” are different from all shrubs and all herbs.

The real question is if this translation is supported by the source or an attempt to smooth over discrepancies in the original.

It is Young’s Literal Translation, FWIW.

[Weisshund]

Why not go with the simple?

God created prehistoric man, because there was no reason for him to be modern.
He lived in a paradise held in stasis by divine intervention.
All he had to do was live in the provided environment, no need for complex tools, cooking etc.
He could be there for 2 billion years, he is in artificial stasis, with out the sleeping part.

Now somewhere along the lines said man screws the pooch, and God discontinues the stasis, because well it’s now contaminated with stuff that does not fit.

If he wanted the man to die, well he would have simply killed him on the spot and said well that ends that.
But since he obviously does not wish him to die, and since there will no longer be a paradise environment and since the man will now have to contend with what ever random challenges the now wild world will throw at him, if you do not want him to die, you have to allow him to adapt as life demands, along with every other living thing.
It’s a free for all out there now.

Personally i find it kind of neat that Genesis refers to a being being created by genetic manipulation and cloning (so as not to simply have an exact duplicate)

I dont take Genesis as “The Step by Step Guide to How to Create a Universe (in 1 week or less)” but more a quick rundown of how you got here and what is important to know so you don’t run around being little bastards to each other.

Otherwise, by revelations you would still be discussing the physics involved and not even gotten past the first 5 milliseconds of the big bang, and i do not imagine explaining that to very prehistoric man to be a fun or rewarding task, let alone it being useful to him.

Let there be light makes a lot more sense to “Lucy” than explaining the mechanics of a big bang, nor is it of any importance in a God to human Child sense.
She lives only here, she can not see the universe, no need to explain to her past created the heavens, she lives on earth, she can see hear smell and touch it, so that is where the discussion is confined to.

I am God after all, speaking to my children, unique in all the universe.
One day my children will grow and learn, and will better understand what actually took place when i created all this, but for now they are very young children, so i must present in a way in which they may understand.

Hmm maybe i will let them create their own children, then they can see what i go through…

[Grey]

Yeah, well God sucks at cosmology.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@Flyer

The way we reconcile it is by pointing out the highly illogical nature of ASSUMING that certain processes remain the same for long periods of time.

Shouldn’t you perhaps do some extremely basic research about radiocarbon dating before you go spouting nonsense about it? The method is not used to date samples older than 50,000 years unless they’re very large, because too little of the isotope remains.

Older samples are dated using geologic methods and samples that survive over longer timescales like potassium.

[elfkin477]

@cmkeller

She was his sister (or, more accurately, one of his sisters, or more than one. There is a Midrash says that there were three girls born alongside Cain and Abel, and in fact, Cain and Abel’s argument that led to the murder revolved around who would get to wed the spare sister). Adam and Eve had many sons and daughters in addition to the three sons that were actually named. (see Genesis 5:4).

Adam and Eve had more kids, but the Bible specifically says that their third child, Seth, is born after Cain killed Abel, and the they had more kids after that, so they weren’t fighting over their sisters.

[cmkeller]

elfkin:

Adam and Eve had more kids, but the Bible specifically says that their third child, Seth, is born after Cain killed Abel, and the they had more kids after that, so they weren’t fighting over their sisters.

You’re correct that the verse at 5:4 couldn’t mean any sisters that were a bone of contention between Cain and Abel. The idea that sisters came between those two was from a Midrash - Jewish oral tradition, which I would not be able to use to demonstrate textual consistency of the Bible. I just mentioned it as an interesting aside. I quoted 5:4 to point out that even explicitly in the Bible it acknowledges that Adam and Eve had daughters, so the question of where Cain’s wife might have come from is answered within the text itself (even if there’s an oral tradition that suggests his wife was a sister not referred to in that verse).

[simster]

@cmkeller

elfkin:

You’re correct that the verse at 5:4 couldn’t mean any sisters that were a bone of contention between Cain and Abel. The idea that sisters came between those two was from a Midrash - Jewish oral tradition, which I would not be able to use to demonstrate textual consistency of the Bible. I just mentioned it as an interesting aside. I quoted 5:4 to point out that even explicitly in the Bible it acknowledges that Adam and Eve had daughters, so the question of where Cain’s wife might have come from is answered within the text itself (even if there’s an oral tradition that suggests his wife was a sister not referred to in that verse).

So, again, 'GOD’s" book needs a better editor.

[SOJA]

The religious will find a reason to explain the unexplained or unknown. It’s essentially the basis of all religious, and not necessarily Christianity. There’s already a considerable amount of overlap between the bible, koran and the torah that makes me question the validity of all the claims in these religious texts far more than I did years ago.

[eschereal]

@SOJA

The religious will find a reason to explain the unexplained or unknown. It’s essentially the basis of all religious, and not necessarily Christianity. There’s already a considerable amount of overlap between the bible, koran and the torah that makes me question the validity of all the claims in these religious texts far more than I did years ago.

The lion’s share of abrahamic-religion believers are not YECs. Catholic clerics, for example, recognize that the first part of Genesis is all allegorical and symbolic. You just do not hear of Catholics going out of their way to search for Noah’s ark. The YECs barely outnumber Last Thursdayists in the world.

And there are still a shitload of believers in the world whose religions have no relation whatsoever to the mosesbook.

[Czarcasm]

@eschereal

The lion’s share of abrahamic-religion believers are not YECs. Catholic clerics, for example, recognize that the first part of Genesis is all allegorical and symbolic. You just do not hear of Catholics going out of their way to search for Noah’s ark. The YECs barely outnumber Last Thursdayists in the world.

And there are still a shitload of believers in the world whose religions have no relation whatsoever to the mosesbook.

YECs may be in the minority numbers-wise, but if you let them grab Mr. Microphone without protest, and don’t speak loudly when the open up their “museums” and theme parks, don’t publicly condemn them when they take over the airwaves, and don’t actively oppose them when they try to control schoolboards, and don’t officially oppose them when they run for office, then they become a Vocal Majority that will just get worse as you stay on that high, but silent, road.

[Sir_T-Cups]

I’m a slight bit hazy on the details because it’s been a good handful of years since my school days…

One of the things I heard is that the prehistoric/neanderthal looking humans are, in fact, regular people who are just extremely old…er…aged…I mean they died when they were 1000s of years old.

There’s a part of me that wants to say that I read this in a legit magazine (Time or something like that), but we all know how memory works. But it’s pretty common in the Bible for the Old Testament people to live to be thousands of years old. This magazine (or former teacher) looked at the way our bodies change with age, and extrapolated that a person who lived to be over 1000 eventually would look like the neanderthal-type people we find.

I can’t exactly remember when the “man living in the 1000s” went out of style (I think it was Abraham’s fault for sleeping with his daughter?) but it was a punishment of man that they no longer live that long. So a possible explanation isn’t that it’s some ancient pre-human, it’s just a regular dude who’s old as shit.

[eschereal]

@Sir_T-Cups

… it’s pretty common in the Bible for the Old Testament people to live to be thousands of years old…

Not really. Or, more precisely, not at all. Ever, as far as I know. Adam allegedly lived 960 years. Methuselah nine years more than that. Is there a biblical account of a human (non-magical person) living longer than Methuselah? Because that seems like less than “thousands of years”.

[gytalf2000]

@Czarcasm

YECs may be in the minority numbers-wise, but if you let them grab Mr. Microphone without protest, and don’t speak loudly when the open up their “museums” and theme parks, don’t publicly condemn them when they take over the airwaves, and don’t actively oppose them when they try to control schoolboards, and don’t officially oppose them when they run for office, then they become a Vocal Majority that will just get worse as you stay on that high, but silent, road.

Good point!

[Sir_T-Cups]

@eschereal

Not really. Or, more precisely, not at all. Ever, as far as I know. Adam allegedly lived 960 years. Methuselah nine years more than that. Is there a biblical account of a human (non-magical person) living longer than Methuselah? Because that seems like less than “thousands of years”.

See? I told you it’d been a while…

Regardless of my horrible concept of math and numbers, my point still stands: It’s the skeleton of people who lived well past 100

[Enola_Straight]

God may have made the Sun…the physical object…on the fourth day, but He created Light…electromagnetizm…on the first day.

[leahcim]

@Sir_T-Cups

Regardless of my horrible concept of math and numbers, my point still stands: It’s the skeleton of people who lived well past 100

But they were also giants (in order to create the Paluxy footprints)! Which they can do because of the enhanced atmosphere and radiation protection from the vapour canopy!

(I used to follow creationist arguments more closely – for entertainment purposes only, of course).

[Czarcasm]

What the Bible says and in what order it says it doesn’t really matter to the believers. If the Bible said that Man was created on the second day and the heavens and the earth was created on the fourth day, I have absolutely no doubt one of them would come up with a perfectly logical explanation without breaking a sweat.

[Silver_lining]

@EinsteinsHund

I’m currently watching a fascinating documentary on Arte TV about the findings of a 25,000 year old burial of a female homo sapiens who carried a fetus with neanderthal features and DNA. This seems to prove earlier DNA findings that modern humans and neanderthals interbred. That lead me to the question in the title. Of course, everything is twisted in creationists’ argumentation, but I somehow can see how they brush away fossils of extinct animals by explaining them to be victims of the flood, but how do they reconcile neanderthals, homo erectus etc. with the Biblical accounts? There’s nothing about other human species in Genesis, if you don’t count the nebulous Nephilim or even farther fetched, angels and demons (though I wouldn’t be surprised if someone declared, say, Lucy to be a demon skeleton :rolleyes:). So what gives?

In ancient times, there was never a large population of Humans, Neanderthals, or the hobbit-sized humans found in the Pacific Islands.

Many centuries ago, the sea levels were much lower than what they were today. You can actually see buried ruins under the sea off the coast of Japan and India for example.

I believe the ice age greatly diminished the Neanderthals, who did interbreed with a human. Most Caucasians and Asians have Neandertal DNA in them. Up to 3-4%.

The Neanderthal population was not in the warmer climate zones near the equator.

When the ice age ended, temperatures went up and there was massive flooding. Since early human beings, neanderthals and hobbit sized beings needed fish water by rivers and lakes ( lower lands ) many of them were doomed.